I agree. While receiving an education in physics from secular institutesand taking every course in religion and philosophy I could temporallysustain, I really was not faced with any "crises" of belief as aYECer until I thought about the Sun's creation on the fourth"day." Hence, the first three days, I reasoned, surly were not solar. Onlythen did I became open to non literal interpretationsof Genesis. In other words, biblical exegeses is what enlightened me tothe need for another view than YEC, not science which I viewed with suspicion.Perhaps we should start there; a simple questioning of just what is a "day."The person "in the pew" simply accepts a day is a day!(1) He had great command of humor and understood how people in the pew(who
typically lack both scientific and theological sophistication) think. ie,
he met them where they live.(2) He shared their "commonsense" view of science as organized, classified,
proven facts, rather than speculative, abstract hypotheses such as
evolution. ie, he presented a false vision of real science asit is
practiced today; but he could be understood and appeared to make sense.(3) As Bernie Ramm said about GM Price, another fundamentalist "scientist"
from the same period, he was "popular because he strode forth likeDavid to
meet the Goliath of modern uniformitarian geology and that even thoughthe
giant has not fallen Price has been slinging his smooth stones formore than
forty years." ie he didn't give a darn what real geologists thought:he
cared strongly for his vision of truth.(4) He sure as heck appeared to be biblical, even though the original
author(s) of Genesis probably wouldn't have recognized him as one oftheir
own. The attraction of a "biblical science," as vs a biblicalVIEW of
science, is almost too hard for many Christians to resist.So, if we in ASA are to have comparable influence, we need to find waysto
do (1) without doing (2), (3) and (4). Any suggestions?Ted Davis
-- George Andrews Jr.Assistant Professor of PhysicsLeTourneau Universityandrewsg@letu.edu